A CALL FOR FOUNDERS The Boston Society for Digital Commerce A few weeks ago, before my San Francisco trip, I had a great lunch with Peter Cassidy, a contract writer and industrial analyst. Cassidy writes stuff on digital commerce and other net.things for the Economist, Wired and a number of other drier trade rags and authors the occassional market research piece for industrial research firms around Boston. As disparate our backgrounds and life experiences may be, our luncheon was reminiscent of the original AA meeting. We gibbered at each other for two hours about strong crytography and the enormous potential of Web-mediated commerce and the effects of both on life, the universe, and everything. It was marvelous for two informed parties to share thoughts on the substance of the revolution at hand, undistracted by hype and hyperbole that too often haunts these subjects. I went on to hang out that night with a couple of pals from my school days at Chicago and they had *no* idea what I was talking about, though they could tell it had me pretty animated. Both Peter and I figured we needed to have a regular fix of this, and we both figured that there are others in Boston who would benefit from the same experience. People in Boston who have someunderstanding of the financial markets, the internet, strong cryptography and the consequences of mixing the three: digital certificates, the potential for absolute anonymity, and geodesic markets for everything from financial instruments to software to professional services. People in Boston who would like to meet once a month or so in a function room somewhere downtown, have lunch, and listen to a speaker or see a net.demo, or just hang out and gab on some aspect of digital commerce. So, to quote Andy Hardy, "I've got a barn! Let's have a show!". I've made some calls, and I can get a meeting room for a couple of hours and a nice lunch for 20 people in downtown Boston for about $25 a head as a starting point, subject to demand and scalability. I figure the agenda of the first meeting will be an introduction of everybody, and organizing some kind of structure for further meetings: programming and anything else we need to do to get the next meeting(s) organized, including picking a name. The imposing name "Boston Society for Digital Commerce" is just prima facie, subject to change at the first meeting. At the moment, I'm looking at a meeting date of Tuesday, October 3rd, and at a location to be named later for lunch, say from 12:00 to 2. I'll give you a hint: it's a 30th floor room overlooking the Charles from downtown , and, yes, you need a coat and tie. I figure I'll collect checks payable to the place where we have lunch, with, say, a registration cutoff of 2 days prior to the event, so I can get the room paid for in advance, and so we can bootstrap this financially until we come up with a better method for doing things. How to Sign Up: Reply to this message if you're interested in helping this get started, or if you just want have lunch and talk shop with people who'll actually understand what you're saying, and I'll give you all the details. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) Shipwright Development Corporation, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 323-7923 "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell
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